For you in northern Europe Easter is a memory, for us we are now coming to the end of Lent as the huge feast of Easter celebrations start.

Easter led in with 3 weeks of Carnival; for the 3 Sundays before Lent commences we have a parade in Corfu town and several larger villages, all the children dress up and have great fun throwing tons of “xarto polemo” (it means paper war, but is like confetti)

The end of carnival celebrations and the official beginning of Lent is Kathara Deftera (Clean Monday). For us this is probably one of our most favourite days of the year.

Everyone heads out to the countryside with a picnic and flies kites. It is a family day, which over the years has become very competitive as to who can fly their kite the highest and many poor children are left kiteless whilst the dads try to outdo each other! The picnic should consist of special food mainly shell fish and vegetables, no eggs or milk or meat, thankfully wine is allowed! Religious Greeks follow 6 weeks of very strict fasting totally abstaining from meat and fish, and with special Lenten foods on certain days.

During this time we also had the March 25th celebration for Independence Day. This is a national holiday and celebrates the end of 400 years of Turkish occupation.

All the school children say poems and sing songs about the heroism of Greek fighters and followed by parades with our brass bands. The child who obtained the highest marks at school has the honour of carrying the Greek flag in the procession. 

All the children look very smart in their “official” blue and white school uniforms, which are only ever worn twice a year in the parades! 

These parades somehow seem to mark the end of winter and beginning of spring as all the activities take place outside.

Corfu with its wonderful musical heritage has become a famous place for Greeks to visit at Easter, they follow the Good Friday Epitaphios procession following the flower bedecked bier of Christ around the town, which starts at 5.00pm and continues until late into the night. On Easter Saturday, after yet more parades, with the brass bands hats polished to perfection, at exactly 11.00am ceramic pots, of all sizes are thrown out of windows and from balconies, filled with water for a more satisfying noise!. No one is sure why, some say to celebrate the first sighting of Jesus, others that it symbolizes the clearing out of the old ready for new of spring. 

It is also traditionally the time when the family lamb is slaughtered ready for the Easter feast. On Easter Saturday night, the candlelit Resurrection mass is held out in the open in Corfu Town, and at midnight when the words “Christos Anesti” (Jesus is risen) are said, the old fort lights up a huge cross, and fireworks are set off all over the island and it is time to celebrate.

Everyone then heads off to eat at 1.00 in the morning to break their fast on a dish called “magiritsa”, a soup made from the lamb’s intestines which is to ease ones digestion back into eating meat after a 6 week abstinence.

The red eggs are cracked like conkers, a great competition for kids to see who has the toughest egg and can put a crack in the most eggs. (If invited to join in, use the sharpest end of the egg to knock another, and offer the sharper end to receive your knock, and cup your egg in your hand so most of the egg is protected!) Then on Easter Sunday the bands parade around town playing joyful music and the day is spent roasting a whole lamb on a spit, the whole family joining in, and consuming copious amounts of local wine. It is a time of year when families make the effort to be together however far away they live.

The island itself now is a carpet of colour with purples, yellows and red poppies.

It is a mystery how the “Judas” tree always manages to flower at Easter regardless of when it falls, and makes splashes of bright pink colour all over the hillside. It is so called as it is allegedly the tree used by Judas to hang himself.

Over a hundred types of wild orchids grow on the island and everywhere you look is something to admire.

This year yet again the weather caught us out; we had some beautiful days, so we busied ourselves out in the garden planting and trimming, and then out of the blue, temperatures dropped and hail stones the size of golf balls fell and settled, killing off all the new shoots!

Now is the time when everyone is busy getting ready for the summer to start, so there is lots of house painting, whitewashing and tidying up going on.